The story is set on Contra, a human-settled planet in the distant future. Civilization’s higher functions are tended to by three Filtering Computers, which control the weather, food production, and the transportation system correspondingly. These computers are monitored by the Central Mentality, a random guy who won a lottery and has been turned into a Human Popsicle while his brain runs everything. The ideal is for the CM to stay in such a state for five hundred years, at which point they’ll be revived and replaced with the next one.

Of course, this is where things go wrong.

The current CM is suddenly woken by a series of error messages. An earthquake has damaged all three Filtering Computers, causing chaos and death on the surface. The guys that put him in there had no backup plans in case of such a catastrophic failure, leaving the CM to try and fix all three before too much damage occurs. Unfortunately, because he’s still in a tube, he has to mentally control six robots in the facility, each of whom has a very specific function. Even worse, a previous CM (Gregory Franklin) went insane and tried to destroy the planet, meaning the public has very little tolerance for this kind of situation. If the death toll gets too high, they’ll be coming down to fix the problem themselves...by shutting you down.

This Game Contains Examples Of:

And I Must Scream: "A Cryogenic Nightmare" indeed. You can't see or move. You have six robots that between them almost make up one complete, functional human. And no way to communicate with the technicians coming to disconnect you.

Difficulty Levels: The higher difficulty settings give you less time to complete all the tasks.

Disturbing Statistic: The game keeps track of how many people die while you try to repair the systems.

Failsafe Failure: The small informational booklet constantly mentions that nothing can possibly go wrong and, as such, leaves no real directions behind in case of a failure (and the ones they DO give are either Blatant Lies or filled with half-truths). The problem is, you ARE the Failsafe, and when you wake up, you have no directions, your robots are in terrible shape, and the REAL damage has just barely begun. In particular, they never bothered to fix the incredibly helpful multitasking Fred robot and neither can you.

Feelies: This is an Infocom game, after all. The Feelies included a booklet about the facility and the robots, a letter congratulating you on being chosen to serve as CM, a lottery card, and a map of the facility (with tokens to help you keep track of your robots). The box itself was a really cool looking mask of someone in cryogenic animations.

Fridge Logic: Invoked in-universe, the manual implies that people who bring up objections to the system mentioned on the Fridge Logic page tend to get "lucky" in the next lottery.

From Bad to Worse: Two more earthquakes hit at a set number of moves. The first causes an acid spill in one corridor; if a robot passes through it, they’ll die. The second quake causes enough damage to the Filtering Computers to shut down food production and distribution, sending the death toll skyrocketing unless you finish repairs immediately.

A God Am I: One of the previous CMs, Gregory Franklin, went this route, and it's made the public a tad unsettled at your existence since then.

Guide Dang It!: You know that map we mentioned back in the Feelies entry? Well, the game neglects to tell you where the room exits are, which room is which, etc. You know, the things you need to know in order to get anywhere? The game also fails to tell you what each robot does and what commands they’ll respond to. Meaning, if you try to play without the Feelies... good luck.

Harder Than Hard: The highest difficulty level, "Impossible", is accurately named — shortly after the game begins, the sun explodes and everybody dies.

Lottery of Doom: Congratulations! You've won the lottery! And your prize is being locked up over twenty miles underground, frozen for five hundred years, while your brain is used to run your entire civilization!

Meaningful Name: Each of the robots has a name that matches their function. There’s Iris (the vision robot), Waldo (the grabbing robot), Sensa (who senses photonic emissions and ionic discharges), Auda (who can hear things), Poet (who speaks in a kind of cipher at times), and Whiz (who connects you with the Central Library Core).

Red Herring: Fred, the seventh robot. He's a multipurpose model, which would make him the most useful machine in the room, right? Too bad that Franklin completely destroyed him. You can find his body all right, but you’re wasting your time if you try to repair him. That wire inside him might be of use though.

Shout-Out: After you've helped the technicians fix the pipe leak from the Filtering Computers in the Maintenance Area, when they return to the Sleep Chamber, they mention playing a game of Starcross, another Infocom game.

Teamwork Puzzle Game: Because the robots are designed with one specific function, you have to make use of all their talents to finish the game.

Timed Mission: From the start of the game, you have to fix all the Filtering Computers before the people come down and kill you. You CAN shut down the transport systemnote or steal the repair crew's equipment, or lead them to some of the damage to give yourself a little more time, but if it comes to that, you’re pretty much dead.

Unwinnable by Design: If you lose the wrong combination of robots, the game is pretty much done for.

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